World shares retreat despite Trump’s trade truce with Xi

MANILA Philippines AP World shares retreated on Friday after U S stocks fell back following President Donald Trump s meeting with China s leader Xi Jinping The future for S P rose while that for the Dow Jones was up less than In early European trading Germany s DAX slid to Britain s FTSE shed to In Paris the CAC fell to Despite Trump and Xi s agreement to extend a truce in the bargain war between the two largest economies Chinese markets declined on concerns over persisting tensions between Washington and Beijing Hong Kong s Hang Seng index shed to and the Shanghai Composite index slipped to Details disclosed Friday manifested factory activity in China contracted in October for a seventh straight month and at the fastest pace in six months The official NBS Manufacturing PMI fell to from in September Japan s Nikkei index was the outlier among major Asian markets gaining to yet another record after a assessment demonstrated industrial production rose month-on-month in September beating area expectations and rebounding from a drop the month before South Korea s Kospi rose to while Australia s S P ASX lost earlier gains shedding less than to Taiwan s Taiex fell while India s BSE Sensex slipped On Thursday the S P fell to dropping further from its all-time high set on Tuesday The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped to The Nasdaq composite dropped from its record set the day before closing at Trump rated his meeting with Xi as a on a scale of zero to saying he would cut tariffs But stocks had already run to records on expectations for potentially bigger improvements in bargain friction between Beijing and Washington Earnings of Big Tech companies also were feeling the pressure of high hopes Meta Platforms dropped cutting into what had been a jump for the year so far It was the heaviest weight on the S P Analysts noted investors were likely perturbed by how much Facebook s parent company commented it s planning to spend in Companies across the industry have been on an financing spree to build out their artificial-intelligence capabilities and the concern is whether it will all pay off There are moments in sector history when capital stops behaving like money and starts acting like obsession when spending becomes the strategy not the consequence That s exactly where we are now with artificial intelligence Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management declared in a commentary Microsoft sank even though it communicated stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected Analysts pointed to how it also expects to spend more on investments in than in while development for its Azure business may have fallen a bit short of particular investors expectations On the winning side of Big Tech was Alphabet Shares of Google s parent company climbed after its profit and revenue for the latest quarter easily topped analysts expectations How such companies do matters incredibly for investors The trio of Alphabet Meta and Microsoft alone account for of the total value of all the companies in the S P index which dictates the movements for plenty of k accounts That means movements for them and a handful of other Big Tech companies can easily overshadow what hundreds of other stocks are doing In other dealings early Friday benchmark U S crude oil shed cents to per barrel Brent crude the international standard lost cents to The U S dollar rose to Japanese yen from yen The euro was flat at Source